


keep our cold hearts from calling

by ratherembarrassing



Series: to be a mother and be gone [2]
Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-04-30 14:29:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5167286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ratherembarrassing/pseuds/ratherembarrassing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three beds Elizabeth Margaret Sousa slept in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	keep our cold hearts from calling

_1966_

She’s never slept somewhere without an adult before, and the sounds of winter outside have her watching shadows shift and grow across her bedroom ceiling.

Liz isn’t scared—their house has more security than probably even the president, which had made her life difficult until she worked out that the security code for the alarm was her mother’s birthday—but what if the noises outside aren’t just the tree scratching at her window?

They have all this security for a reason, right?

The wind outside surges, sending a branch clattering against the glass and Liz scrambling under her blankets. Liz has always hated this bedroom, but tonight she hates it so much her eyes sting.

In the noise, she doesn’t realize Dickie’s there until he sits on her bed, and she screams until he pulls the blankets from over her head to reveal his smiling face.

“Calm down, doofus.“

"You shithead,” Liz hisses, kicking Dickie in the leg. “Why didn’t you knock?”

“I did.” Dickie stands again, climbs under her blanket. She makes a space for his head on her pillow. They lie there in silence for a while. “This storm’s really bad.”

She nods, her hair pulling where it’s caught under his shoulder.

“I hope it’s okay in the city.”

Dickie nods at that, turns on his side to peer at her through the dark. “They were—”

“Shut up,” she snaps.

Dickie huffs out a breath, but he doesn’t say anything more. His fingers curl around her arm, nails scratching through her pajamas along the crease of her elbow.

“Shut up,” she repeats, letting her eyes finally close.

—

_1959_

Liz’s supposed to be asleep, but she’s about to reach the part where Susan and Trumpkin have their archery battle and it won’t take long to read that bit and she has to read that bit. That’s her favorite.

She can get away with it now. Daddy doesn’t have superpowers that tell him when she’s reading in bed, but he does make sure her nightgown has long sleeves to keep her arms warm outside the blanket.

After Susan wins, Liz closes her book and turns off her lamp, and then waits before tucking her arms under the blanket. She counts the number of times she blinks while she waits, and then her door cracks open.

Dickie’s socks make a flat sound on the carpet once he closes the door, and he pushes her blanket aside before climbing into the space she’s left beside her for him.

“Edmund’s an idiot,” he says once the blanket is around both their shoulders, his head on Liz’s pillow. “And turkish delight is gross.”

Dickie’s only reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for the first time, so she’s reading them all again so he’ll have someone to talk to it about. She remembers most of what her mother had explained when she read it, at least sort of.

Maybe she doesn’t though, and she shifts a little, threading her arm around Dickie’s. “You’ve never had turkish delight.”

“Have too,” he replies, pinching her elbow.

“Nu-uh,” she says, and then again and again each time Dickie says he has until she doesn’t remember replying anymore.

—

_1955_

“Now,” Lizzie says, “we’re up very high. So if it floods, we’ll be above the water.”

Under her blankets, she’s teaching Rabbit and Bear and ‘lephant how to be brave, because she already knows how. There is a storm outside, and they’re afraid, but they really don’t have to be. They just have to—

The blanket is pulled from Lizzie’s head, and her mum is holding it above them, making a face down at her. She’s dressed in black clothes and her hair is all tucked up to look like a boy, and Lizzie knows that means she is going somewhere and might not be here in the morning.

“Lizzie, why aren’t you asleep?” her mum asks, and Lizzie can’t tell if she’s cross or not.

Peggy is about to sit down, but 'lephant is beneath where the blanket has puddled, and Lizzie dives underneath to rescue him. “Not here!”

“Okay!” her mum says, lifting the blanket again. “Why were you having a very important meeting with your animal counsel?”

Lizzie shuffles back into her pillows, making space for her mum, and sets 'lephant in her lap. “They were scared.”

“I see,” Peggy says, pulling Bear into her own lap. “Of the storm?”

Lizzie nods, hoping Bear doesn’t mind where he is. “It’s noisy. I had to tell them it’s okay.”

“It is.” Peggy tugs on Bear’s ear, and Lizzie frowns at that until she stops. “It’s a big storm for such small animals.”

Lizzie’s about to rescue Bear, if he really needs rescuing, when there’s a noise from the hall, and they both look to find Dickie in the doorway.

“When’s it going to be over?” he asks around his finger, shuffling across the floor to stand by Peggy. “Where are you going?”

“Nowhere far, darling.” She sets Bear on the far side of the bed, propped against the wall, and Lizzie puts Rabbit next to him. “Do you think the animal counsel will be okay now?”

“I think so.” Lizzie hugs 'lephant closer, and pulls her blanket up a bit, a tangle of bedding across her legs. “I can look after them.”

“Does Dickie know it’s going to be okay?” Peggy asks.

Lizzie doesn’t know if he does, and she sighs. Dickie’s afraid of a lot of things, for reasons Lizzie doesn’t always understand.

“Well,” Peggy says, standing from the bed and straightening the blanket. “What if Dickie stays here and you tell him what you told the counsel?”

Dickie looks at Lizzie with wide eyes, and Lizzie nods.

“Good,” Peggy says, lifting Dickie up onto the bed and in next to Lizzie. She sits down again then, right on the edge of the bed next to them both, and takes Dickie’s hand, tucking it around Lizzie’s arm. “Once you’ve told Dickie about why it’s going to be okay, you’ll both look after the animals, won’t you?”

Dickie’s already falling asleep between her and their mum, and Lizzie nods for them both.


End file.
